Scar, along with about twenty others, patrolled the distant reaches of Paramount, the Sixth District. Three hours by carriage just to get here. As an avid walker, he'd wondered at first why they bothered with a carriage. His complaining back now answered that question.
The irony wasn't lost on anyone: Mingle led them, looking completely stunned to still be breathing.
Paramount took a minimalist approach to construction. Unlike Scar's home district of Barbados, with its solid brick and concrete structures, Paramount built everything from wood.
The foundations remained concrete, but everything above ground was wood studs and plywood. Faster to build and easier to replace, these structures saved lives during devastating Scarlet Kin incursions.
Scar's team, the seventeenth batch of losers, drew wall patrol duty: guarding the border between human territory and the domain of creatures spawned by the red moon, in Paramount's district.
They were far from populated areas, walking through sparse bushes with scattered trees. The open terrain made it easy to spot any creature that had breached the wall, even from a distance.
The wall rose nearly thirty feet, with four sentinel posts positioned along it, each manned by members of the Base Six Moon Killers.
Disappointingly boring. Scar had anticipated breathtaking sights, the kind Julien had wished for him. Instead, they'd done nothing but trudge from spot to spot, as if following a lost dog.
Something made him smile at least. Adisa, the bastard who'd been tormenting him all week, was assigned to his batch. The fool kept trying to stay hidden, barely succeeding, and thankfully, he was far less mouthy tonight.
Mingle paused suddenly and gestured for them to form a circle around something. When Scar finally saw it, 'creepy' felt like an understatement.
The thing was nearly featureless, barely visible in the grass, with countless eyes erupting across its entire form. Even its means of locomotion was covered in eyes. The small patches of skin between them were so dark they absorbed the scarlet moon's light completely.
'Ew! Grotesque!'
Even 'grotesque' missed the mark. The creature had a strange allure. His skin was crawling, yes, but he couldn't help thinking that with time, he could capture and domesticate it.
Well, that was the case until Mingle spoke.
"This… is the reason you little ones came out here." He talked gently, all while wearing a smile.
"Moon Killers and even the Royal Knights often overlook creatures like these. Supposedly harmless, they only take a month or two to turn into serious threats. We were meant to deal with them, but it looks like Base Six is managing just fine."
Mid-sentence, one of the students vaporized the creature with their Inheritance.
Mingle looked confused and amused at the same time.
"These things don't appear in most of your memories. In the early days after the Red Day, Scarlet Kins gave birth the usual way.
"The male and female of the same species mated, and in the end, they birthed a fetus of their kind. The baby learned to walk immediately… and was cut off.
"But now… things are changing. Scarlet Kins are starting to act more like monsters. Females can birth on their own without mating, and even males are beginning to do the same.
"Some of the creatures they birth are grotesque. The underlying cause is unknown, but the pattern is clear: their evolution is surpassing our capacity for control."
Something similar surfaced in Scar's memories. The sixth wielder of Flames of the Unknown had been given the same warning before their death.
However, Scar was preoccupied. He might not have been the most brilliant, but once something intrigued him, he couldn't shake it.
This had more to do with his Inheritance than he'd anticipated.
'Unknown, huh?'
Soon, he approached Mingle and asked a question.
"What do you mean by unknown…? Our Inheritance keeps growing. Shouldn't that mean we're prepared?"
Mingle looked at his confused daze with the smile he always wore.
"No… you're mistaken. We can't command the unknown. All we'd do is make space for it. You don't reach for something as if you're familiar with it when you don't even understand its shape."
Scar's eyes widened in realization. That was it, that was exactly what he needed. He'd been trying to reproduce the dark flames Bianca had produced in her dying moments as though he were already familiar with them. As though he knew exactly what the flames were.
'I have to let it answer instead. I don't have to call out to it.'
He wore a grin that made even Mingle's skin shiver.
Before he could pursue this revelation, however, one of the students spoke up.
"Um, sir… there are countless of those creatures here."
Mingle's eyes immediately widened in terror.
"What?"
They rushed over to discover more of the creatures emerging from a small hole just a distance away.
"The parent must be somewhere near."
The moment he spoke, there was a major announcement.
"Alert! Intruder detected! A Scarlet Kin is approaching!"
…
Name: None
Classification: Nightwalker
Scarlet Kin – Generic
Threat Level: Danger
…
They stared in amazement as the Moon Killer left their sentinel position and moved toward a creature resembling the bizarre thing they'd encountered, but towering at nearly seven feet.
Without a doubt, the creature had been living under their noses all this time. But then everyone immediately understood why Mingle had panicked moments ago.
From this distance, they couldn't see clearly, but the screams said enough. The creature saw in all directions, able to anticipate every assault. Worse, those who tried physical attacks achieved nothing, their weapons were simply consumed by its hide.
"That's her. Haven. I just heard she broke into the top two hundred among the Moon Killers."
When one of Scar's colleagues spoke up, Scar, who hadn't been paying much attention, immediately turned toward them.
He could barely contain his excitement. There, was his crush, freezing that giant creature in ice with nothing but her power.
'Oh, Julien… grant me your blessings. Again!'
He was practically drooling despite hardly catching a glimpse of Haven.
Soon, the crowd dispersed. While the others departed, Scar knelt by the small creatures' remains. He'd hoped to use them for his experiment, but unfortunately, his teammates had eagerly slaughtered them all.
"Now, whatever it is Bianca summoned… how about we play a little game?"